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Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity: The State of the Debate

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  • Krautkraemer, Jeffrey A.

Abstract

Whether economic growth can be sustained in a finite natural world is one of the earliest and most enduring questions in economic literature. Even with unprecedented growth in human population and resource consumption, humans have been quite adept at finding solutions to the problem of scarce natural resources, particularly in response to signals of increased scarcity. Because environmental resources generally are not generally traded on markets, however, scarcity signals for these resources may be inadequate, and appropriate policy responses are difficult to implement and manage. In the debate over the economic scarcity of natural resources, one significant change in recent years has been a greater focus on the ecosystem services and the resource amenities yielded by natural environments. The general conclusion of this paper is that technological progress has ameliorated the scarcity of natural resource commodities; but resource amenities have become more scarce, and it is unlikely that technology alone can remedy that.

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  • Krautkraemer, Jeffrey A., 2005. "Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity: The State of the Debate," Discussion Papers 10562, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:rffdps:10562
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.10562
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    Cited by:

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    2. Pedro Monteiro & Teresa De Noronha & Paulo Neto, 2013. "A Differentiation Framework for Maritime Clusters: Comparisons across Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(9), pages 1-30, September.
    3. John E. Wagner & David H. Newman, 2013. "The Simon-Ehrlich Bet: Teaching Relative Vs. Absolute Scarcity," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 58(1), pages 16-26, May.
    4. Durmaz, Tunç, 2018. "The economics of CCS: Why have CCS technologies not had an international breakthrough?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 328-340.
    5. Fatma El-Hamidi, 2007. "Early Retirement in the Government Sector in Egypt: Preferences, Determinants and Policy Implications," Working Papers 721, Economic Research Forum, revised 01 Jan 2007.
    6. Robert Wiedmer & Judith M. Whipple & Stanley E. Griffis & Clay M. Voorhees, 2020. "Resource Scarcity Perceptions in Supply Chains: The Effect of Buyer Altruism on the Propensity for Collaboration," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 56(4), pages 45-64, October.
    7. Combes, Jean-Louis & Delacote, Philippe & Combes Motel, Pascale & Yogo, Thierry Urbain, 2018. "Public spending, credit and natural capital: Does access to capital foster deforestation?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 306-316.
    8. Hu, Xiaowei & Li, Peng, 2022. "Relief and stimulus in a cross-sector multi-product scarce resource supply chain network," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    9. Xiaowei Hu & Peng Li, 2021. "Relief and Stimulus in A Cross-sector Multi-product Scarce Resource Supply Chain Network," Papers 2101.09373, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    10. Bryan, Brett A. & Ye, Yanqiong & Zhang, Jia'en & Connor, Jeffery D., 2018. "Land-use change impacts on ecosystem services value: Incorporating the scarcity effects of supply and demand dynamics," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(PA), pages 144-157.
    11. Marius Bulearca & Catalin Popescu, 2019. "New Approaches To The Management Of Natural Resources (1): The Exploitation," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 6, pages 34-40, December.
    12. Presno, María José & Landajo, Manuel & Fernández, Paula, 2014. "Non-renewable resource prices: A robust evaluation from the stationarity perspective," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 394-416.
    13. Marius Bulearca & Catalin Popescu, 2020. "New Approaches To The Management Of Natural Resources (2): The Market," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1, pages 48-54, February.
    14. Lapko, Yulia & Trucco, Paolo & Nuur, Cali, 2016. "The business perspective on materials criticality: Evidence from manufacturers," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 93-107.
    15. Alfred Greiner & Willi Semmler & Tobias Mette, 2012. "An Economic Model of Oil Exploration and Extraction," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 40(4), pages 387-399, December.
    16. Giulio Mela & Maria Leonor Carvalho & Andrea Temporelli & Pierpaolo Girardi, 2021. "The Commodity Life Cycle Costing Indicator. An Economic Measure of Natural Resource Use in the Life Cycle," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-20, April.

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